Baroness Andrews: As part of the transitional arrangements for the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR), the Government have set up a transition team to prepare options for the incoming board. As part of the ongoing consultation process, this team has organised a series of events in England, Scotland and Wales to hear the views of stakeholders on the ground. The events have involved representatives of all communities of interest that will covered by the CEHR. In many instances, the events were co-hosted by regional equality bodies.
	This year the events took place at these locations across England: Birmingham (Midlands); York (Yorkshire); Salford (North West); Cornwall (south-west); Bristol (south-west); London; Gatwick (south-east); Peterborough (east of England); and Durham (north-east).
	Scotland: Dundee (Scotland); Inverness (Scotland); and Glasgow (Scotland).
	Wales: Cardiff (Wales); Llandrindod Wells (Wales); and Llandudno (Wales).
	In addition to these events around the country, the CEHR team also engage regularly with stakeholder bodies, such as the existing equality commissions (Disability Rights Commission, Equal Opportunities Commission and Commission for Racial Equality), voluntary and campaigning groups, trade unions, business representations and focus groups made up of members of the public.

Baroness Andrews: A series of stakeholder events took place between April and July 2006 and form part of a wide range of activities being taken forward by the team responsible for putting in place transitional arrangements for the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights.
	The plan was to engage with a wide range of stakeholders and hear views on how the new commission can have most impact on a national/regional and local level. The events were seen as an opportunity for stakeholders from all strands to meet and understand each others' views and to begin to share ideas.
	We invited individuals or organisations that work in, or across, the following areas: age; race; religion and belief; disability; sexual orientation; gender; and human rights.
	We also invited individuals or organisations working in the equality area that cover: trade unions; health; education; transport; public and private employers.
	The events were co-ordinated in consultation with the government offices, regional development agencies or their nominated delivery unit as these events were seen as a follow up to the Green and White Paper events originally developed by the DTI Equality Bill team.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: Although we are aware that many people greatly enjoy attending car boot sales, they are one of the places used by criminals to profit from crime. A number of enforcement agencies, including the police and trading standards, routinely act to tackle crime at car boot sales, but we recognise that it can be difficult to assert consumer and other rights in such informal channels.
	In recognition of those difficulties, the Government are seeking to amend the Enterprise Act 2002 which will reinforce consumer rights and enhance the protection of intellectual property rights.
	We are also proposing to consult widely on how best to work with traders in second hand goods to disrupt markets for stolen goods. That consultation will also seek views on how best to work with the organisers of occasional sales such as car boot sales to reduce the opportunities for criminals to benefit from attending such events.

Baroness Andrews: Average weekly rents by region are published for the local authority sector and the registered social landlord sector on the website of the Department for Communities and Local Government in Tables 701 and 703 respectively. The links for these tables are: www.communities.gov.uk/pub/264/Table701Excel32Kb_id1156264.xls and www.communities.gov.uk/pub/267/Table703_id1156267.xls.
	The percentage changes in average weekly rent by sector and region are given in the table below. These figures are based on nominal prices.
	
		
			 Percentage change in average weekly rent, by sector and region, England 
			 Percentage change over past three years (for which data are available) 
			  Social renters  Private renters3 
			 Government Office Region Local Authority housing1 RSL housing2  
			  2002-05 2003-06 2001-02 & 2002-03 to 2004-05& 2005-06 
			  Per cent 
			 North-east 9.3 15.0 4.3 
			 North-west 6.6 13.3 8.3 
			 Yorkshire and the Humber 10.9 9.9 10.6 
			 East Midlands 10.1 15.2 7.9 
			 West Midlands 10.0 14.5 8.2 
			 East 10.9 12.2 27.1 
			 London 7.3 15.7 -2.4 
			 South East 9.5 14.3 0.8 
			 South West 7.9 13.2 13.6 
			 England 10.4 13.8 6.3 
			 Notes 
			 1 Rents calculated at April. LA data based on unaudited local authority returns from DCLG's second subsidy claim form and are provisional for 2005. 
			 2 Registered Social Landlords. Rents calculated at 31 March. Data derived from the annual regulatory and statistical return, administered by the Housing Corporation. 
			 3 Data based on average rents for assured and assured shorthold tenancies as derived from DCLG's Survey of English Housing. Unlike the LA and RSL rental data, which are based on administrative data, the SEH is a sample survey of just 20,000 households per annum—yielding a sample of only around 2,000 private tenancies each year. Because of this relatively small sample size and in order to determine average rents by region, data from two successive surveys are combined together. Hence the figures above are derived by comparing the average rental figures for 2004-05 and 2005-06 with the figures for 2001-02 and 2002-03.

Lord Triesman: The Government have repeatedly called on Syria and Iran not to supply arms to Hezbollah. During the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah we summoned both the Syrian and Iranian Ambassadors in London to raise our concerns with them about the supply of arms. The UK also worked hard with our international partners in securing the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which calls for an embargo on all arms sale to Lebanon unless authorised by the Government of Lebanon or by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. The UK is now working with our international partners to implement Resolution 1701, in particular by strengthening the ability of the democratically elected Lebanese Government to exercise control throughout Lebanon and ensuring that militias, supported and supplied from outside Lebanon, can never again plunge the region into crisis.

Baroness Andrews: Activity to combat racism takes a number of forms, including actions against discrimination and racist crime, and positive efforts to improve community cohesion.
	The Discrimination Law Review, which is currently under way, will address long-held concerns about inconsistencies in the current anti-discrimination legislative framework, including the Race Relations Act 1976 which deals with discrimination on grounds of race. It is also considering opportunities for creating a clearer and more streamlined legislative framework having due regard to better regulation principles, which will be more "user friendly" for employers and employees, as well as the providers and consumers of services. We will also consider the report of Trevor Phillips's Equalities Review, which is examining the underlying causes of inequality, which we expect to be published early next year.
	In addition to tackling racial discrimination, the Government are also funding a number of projects that are working with people from different communities to overcome racist attitudes and violence.
	As we outline in our first annual progress report on our race equality and community cohesion strategy Improving Opportunity, Strengthening Society, we are also working to ensure that hate crime (whether race, faith or homophobic) is tackled more effectively. We are improving the local response to hate crime; increasing victims' confidence in the criminal justice system; increasing the proportion of those crimes that are brought to justice; and improving the evidence-base on hate crime so that action can be taken against perpetrators.

Lord Rooker: A business case/economic appraisal for the Rally Ireland World Rally Championship bid was supplied to the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCAL) on 14 September 2005. On 20 September 2005, DCAL made a decision to authorise the Northern Ireland Events Company (NIEC) to provide funding for Rally Ireland's 2005 pilot event.
	On 4 January 2006 DCAL received a revised business case/economic appraisal for the World Rally Championship bid and on 20 January 2006 it decided in principle to approve the release of funding for the Rally Ireland's 2006 pilot event, subject to the agreement of NIEC and Rally Ireland on a contract for the 2006 event.

Lord Laird: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	How much public funding was given in 2005 and 2006 to (a) the circuit of Ireland; and (b) Rally Ireland.